How did mothers in the past survive without parenting books/sleep schools/sleep training books? (Alt title: How parenting books/sleep schools can fuck up your first year as a parent)

From under which rock did they turn up from? How did mothers in the ye olden times look after their sprouts? How, really?

As if this parenting (especially first timers) gig isn’t daunting enough. Desperate parents fork out loads of dough to seek ‘advice’ from these books/schools. All they do is add more stress to the cause. Thanks. No Thanks.

Put down awake but drowsy

Good luck to you if you are able to do this. I don’t know who you are but congrats, well done etc. You try doing this to some babies and see what happens. This is not possible for most parents. For the sake of self-assurance (ok, more of a what the fuck am I doing wrong), I trawled parenting forums to see what other parents are doing. It’s ok, I’m not the only one who isn’t able to do the put down awake but drowsy bullshit. Some moms are still rocking/feeding/cuddling to sleep. Yet most of them have been suffering silently while they read of other moms’ ‘achievements’ in getting their bubs to ‘self-settle’ (oh don’t get me started!) and sleep at the appropriate nap times and night bedtime.

Seriously get the fuck out.

Self-settling

HAHAHAHAHAH a 12 week old baby self settles to sleep? Or some moms like to embellish the truth a little by telling all and sundries that their babies self settle at 6 weeks.

I call bullshit. Who the fuck are you people? Do you know babies are babies for a very short while? You want to put them in a big cot, all alone in a big room by themselves and put themselves to sleep on their own accord? Who the fuck are you people?

Who was the first person who came up with this genius of an idea that it is good for the baby to be put flat on the cot, in its own room, by itself, self-settles in the early weeks so as to be independent?

Sleep through the night

Just have a quick glance through parenting forums and you will find the common question asks for how to get baby sleep through the night. Look, most babies don’t. It’s natural for them to wake up during the night. Maybe once, maybe twice, maybe I don’t know.

To expect a 6 or even 12 week old baby to sleep through the nigh is ridiculous. Reality is some babies won’t even sleep through the night at 2 years old.

Get used to it.

I know I’d been stressed for the past months of WHY ISN’T THE BABY SLEEPING! But now, I appreciate all the extra cuddles times

Cry It Out

Why would you intentionally let your baby cry it out? So it won’t be dependent on you?

They are babies, they are supposed to be dependent on you!

Breast is best

Ok, we all know breast milk is best for your baby. But what happens if you are not able to breastfeed? It’s frightening how many of these ‘experts’ are saying to persist as breastfeeding is the most natural thing (oh, like vaginal birth without drugs?). This puts a lot of pressure on some moms who want to (or maybe not want to) but can’t. Can’t/not able to, due to a myriad of reason. Not all new moms can breastfeed and this can be distressing. We should encourage FED IS BEST.

Being a first time mom is a learning curve. It is daunting enough for most of us (I say most because judging by ‘instagram moms’, seems to be an easy gig for them, in between baby wearing and breastfeeding and housewarming and looking glam all at the same time).